…The roundup received over 2.2K Facebook likes, dozens of inbound links and generated a 348% increase in organic traffic after just 7 days of going live.

The roundup’s success has been written about on Backlinko.com, QuickSprout.com and KissMetrics.com and after repeating its success with other roundups, I have since become known as the expert on creating and promoting roundups that get results.

Something you’ve always wondered about, think others wonder about, or a subject that frustrates you for lack of unbiased answers is the best place to start.

Whether it’s product recommendations, newbie mistakes, top tips or whatever, find a topic that is crying out for you to fill the void with a better and less biased resource.

Perhaps you’re in the survival niche and reckon there’s no standout resource on what you should do to survive a zombie attack, or perhaps you’re in the fitness niche and think there’s conflicting information on what the best exercises for strength training are, etc.

Whatever you run with, make sure it’s fresh, thought provoking and has never been tackled before in such epic fashion.

Once you’ve got a topic that ROCKS, it’s time to decide on your target keyword(s).

Target keywords you can rank for

Before you can craft the perfect question for your topic, first you need to choose a keyword you can rank for!

Use Google Keyword Planner to get an initial idea of keyword competition:

Never, ever, EVER go for a keyword with high competition.

If you can, always go for a low competition keyword and avoid medium comp keywords if you can.

I usually find that low competition keywords between 200 and 2,000 monthly searches are the easiest to rank for.

As a rule of thumb, don’t bother going for a keyword with more than 10,000 monthly searches, even if it has got low competition.

Once you’ve found a few possibilites head on over to Google and use the “Allintitle:” search string to see how much competition you’re going to be up against.

It’s best to avoid keywords with over 10,000 results because that means competition is too damn high.

For example, “Strength Training” has WAY too much competition:

“Strength Training Exercises” isn’t too bad:

And “Best Strength Training Exercises” will be the easiest to rank for:

If I was genuinely going to go for a strength training related keyword I’d probably risk going for “strength training exercises” but would include “best” in the post’s title just to cover myself.

PLEASE NOTE: You should always abandon your keyword idea if the top results are a whole block of YouTube videos. YouTube videos regularly rank for any “how-to” keyword even if they suck.

Seriously, it’s simply not worth the pain of trying to outrank YouTube which will most likely never happen and remember, YouTube is owned by Google.

Also, regardless as to whether keyword competition is low, if the top 10 results are all from authority sites with high PR like YouTube, Wikihow, Wikipedia, AskMen, etc, it might be worth pursuing another keyword.

Sure, it is possible to outrank these behemoths with some serious link building because most of the time you’ll find they don’t actually have a lot of backlinks and the reason they rank is all down to their site’s authority and inner link juice, but just to play it safe, it’s better to change the keyword to one you’re almost guaranteed to rank for.

Let me show you an example of a keyword that looks great on paper, but once you see the search results you realise it’s “Hasta la vista, baby”!

This keyword: “How to get bigger biceps” looks great. It’s got low competition and is searched an average of 2,900 times per month:

It’s also not returning many results in an “Allintitle” search:

Looks sweet right? Almost the PERFECT keyword! But wait…

…Just look at the sites ranking in the top 4 positions:

Not only are Bodybuilding.com, Wikihow and YouTube up there, but friggin Arnie is #3!!!

Even if you made the top 4 it’s pretty obvious which resource people are going to click on

What’s the lesson from this? – be realistic about your expectations, make informed decisions and if needs be, start over.

Ok so once you’ve got your topic and a target keyword you can rank for, it’s time to carefully craft your question.

Use the 3 Bullets Question Formula

The key to creating viral expert roundups is the 3 Bullets Question Formula.

With the 3 Bullets Question Formula, rather than asking experts for one detailed answer to your question, you instead ask them to list 3 simple solutions, for example:

“If you could only use 3 tools for link building, which 3 would you choose?”

This will ensure your question gets an insanely high response rate (screenshot from BuzzStream’s template manager):

The reason why this encourages so many responses is because by asking for 3 solutions you relieve the pressure of people having to stress over deciding on one key solution.

And if you want to really maximise response rates, make sure your question can be answered in just 3 words.

This means those experts who don’t have time to explain their reasons can simply list them in bullet points, making it even more easy for them to provide an answer.

That’s how I got internet rock stars like Neil Patel, Brian Dean and Nick Eubanks to contribute to my first ever roundup when my blog was totally unknown.

Because a simple Tweet was ALL I needed:

The Shocking Truth

This might shock you a little, but…

…the key to making an expert roundup going viral is not primarily the content, but the amount of experts who take part.

Remember, the more experts = the more eyeballs you can reach when the experts share the post with their huge social followings.

The second reason why the 3 Bullets Question makes virality happen is because it allows you to collect votes for certain tools, techniques, mistakes, solutions etc, and create an ultimate top 5 or top 10 list:

People LOVE list posts, and when you source the greatest minds of your industry to create an unbiased, ultimate list post, people go crazy for it.

Think about it. Would you rather trust a list of top tips written by one expert or one created by 50?

What answers a search query better? One person’s point of view or 50 experts’ points of view?

This is what makes viral content that Google loves and rewards.

Crafting questions with the 3 Bullets Question Formula

Here are two examples of how you can use the 3 Bullets Question Formula to craft one-of-a-kind questions:

#1. If you only had one hour to prepare yourself for surviving a zombie attack, what 3 things would you do first?
#2. If you could only do 3 strength training exercisesfor the rest of your life, what 3 exercises would you do?

Look at these again and notice how I’ve included the target keywords (or some variation of the target keywords) in the questions:

#1. Target keyword: how to survive a zombie attack
Question: If you only had one hour to prepare yourself for surviving a zombie attack, what 3 things would you do first?

#2. Target keyword: strength training exercises
Question: If you could only do 3 strength training exercises for the rest of your life, what 3 exercises would you do?

Basically it’s vital that you…

….include the exact target keyword or a close version of it in your question because this will subtly encourage the experts to include your target keyword in their answer!

This is vital for onsite SEO purposes, because once you put all the responses together in the post, you’ll be sure to have a healthy amount of exact keyword matches and various variations throughout the article.

As you can see, the question naturally encouraged the experts to drop the keywords in their answer:

I cannot stress enough how damn important this is for onsite SEO!!!

If you fail to make this happen then I’m sad to say no matter how keyword optimised your introduction and conclusion is, the article simply won’t rank for your target keyword.

I’ve received countless emails from frustrated people whose roundups have failed because of this simple mistake and I always end up telling them the same thing – their target keyword or a variation of it was barely mentioned throughout the article. Essentially their roundups were doomed from the start.

Ok, so now that you’ve crafted a question that subtly encourages mentions of your target keyword, it’s time to:

Find experts who can help you achieve virality

I’m not going to bore with you a tutorial on how to find experts in your niche. If you’ve researched your niche fully then you should already know who the big players are.

Naturally you need big names involved because these are the people with thousands of followers, so make sure you move mountains to get these guys and girls involved.

One thing I am going to strongly recommend is that you try to find out if any of the experts regularly share links on community sites like Reddit or Inbound.org.

I’ll explain more about this later, but for now, make sure you have at least one Inside Man who can help you share a link to the roundup on the day it goes live.

Right, so you’re going to need a list of no less than 100 experts. That’s because although the email templates below have insanely high conversion rates I don’t want to risk you coming up short

Basically, if you want to maximise the chance of your roundup going viral and ranking you need at least 40 experts involved. Period.

Outreach

The best time to reach out and ask experts to get involved in your roundup is on Tuesday afternoons just after lunch.

You can then send a followup email on Thursday afternoon to chase replies

I use BuzzStream (the same tool the experts use) to manage email outreach. This easy to use tool makes the whole process so much more efficient, so make sure you sign up for your 14 day free trial now, connect an email account and follow this tutorial step by step:

Step 1 – Create a List of Experts in Excel

Fill out each expert’s contact details under 6 fields:

Website Domain
Website Name
Email 1
Person First Name
Person Tag 1*

*It’s good to tag the experts using BuzzStream’s “Person Tag” field for easy sorting once the contacts are uploaded to BuzzStream:

Note: Use these exact names for each field because when you upload them later BuzzStream will match them up with its fields perfectly.

Step 2 – Upload Your Experts to BuzzStream

Once you’ve filled out your excel with over 100 experts save the file as a .CSV, go to BuzzStream’s “People” tab and click “Import from Existing File”:

Then click “Match My CSV”:

Now choose the file you want to import:

As you can see, BuzzStream matches up its fields with your import file headers seamlessly:

There are many more fields to choose from, but I just like to use 5 because it makes the whole process a lot faster.

Now your experts are uploaded you can easily find them whenever you want by filtering your contacts:

And selecting the “Expert” tag you assigned to the experts under “Person Tag 1″ before uploading:

Now your list of contacts has been filtered to experts ONLY:

Pretty cool right?

Since I have over 1000 contacts in my BuzzStream account I’ve assigned various tags for easy sorting whenever I want to reach out to a particular group of people:

You can assign up to 29 different tags!

Step 3 – Create Your First Email Outreach Template

It’s time to create the template you’ll be using to invite experts to take part in your roundup.

In “People” select the “Outreach” drop down tab and click “Create Template”:

In the template editor use BuzzStream’s dynamic drag and drop fields to personalize your email template:

You can copy and paste either of the templates below into your template creator. You’ll just need to replace the target audience (survivalists) and question with your own. All the other BuzzStream fields are good to go:

Expert roundup invitation email V01

Subject: [First Name], quick question

Hey [First Name],

I’m doing an expert roundup on my site and I think many survivalists would love to know your answer to this question:

If you only had one hour to prepare yourself for surviving a zombie attack, what 3 things would you do first?

Thanks in advance!

Oh and naturally, I’ll include a link back to your site.

Thanks!

[User First Name]

Note: The above email works great for niches where people know what an expert roundup is.

If you’re in a niche where experts aren’t familiar with expert roundups, this template is a more suitable alternative:

Expert roundup invitation email V02

Hey [First Name],

I’m a huge fan of your workout tips!

The reason I’m contacting you today is because I’m doing a group expert interview on my site and think many fitness freaks would love to know your answer to this question:

If you could only do 3 strength training exercises for the rest of your life, what 3 exercises would you do?

Thanks in advance [First Name]!

Oh and naturally I’ll include a link back to your site.

Cheers,

[User First Name]

Once you’ve saved your template, head back to your list of contacts and select all the experts you filtered earlier:

Step 4 – Start Outreach

Now that all your experts are selected it’s time to begin outreach!

Then select the template you just made and click “Start Outreach”:

You can either send each email immediately by clicking “Send and go to next contact” or schedule your emails for a certain time:

Remember, just after lunch on a Tuesday is the best time to send the first email.

Step 5 – Track Responses

As soon as people start replying the email conversations will appear in the BuzzStream Dashboard. This is an awesome part of the CRM that allows you to keep on top of all your interactions.

You can then record each stage of your conversation in your original excel sheet to easily see who has provided an answer or needs following up:

Step 6 – Following Up

Not everyone’s going to reply to your first email, so you’re going to need to followup on Thursday afternoon!

Make sure you drop a few names of experts who have already provided an answer to entice people to get involved. A little bit of social proof goes a long way!

Expert roundup followup email

Subject: Interview question followup

Hey [First Name],

Just wondering if you received the interview question I sent you?

A number of your peers have already contributed, including [Expert Name], [Expert Name], [Expert Name] & [Expert Name], but it would be even better if you were involved too [First Name]!
Here’s the question:

[INSERT QUESTION]

We’re planning to publish the post on [ETA Day], so if you’d like to contribute we’d really appreciate it if you can send us your answer before [Day]!

Thanks in advance, and naturally, I’ll include a link back to your site.

All the best,

[User First Name]

Remember: If you’re committed to making a viral expert roundup DO NOT STOP OUTREACH until you have at least 40 responses!!! This might mean you have to extend your outreach into another week, find more experts or follow up more aggressively. Seriously, it doesn’t matter if you have to hold off publishing for a week, or even a month. The most important thing is getting the numbers.

Tally up the votes

As soon as you start receiving responses you should be tallying up votes for the 3 solutions or mistakes you asked the experts to provide.

The votes should produce a top list like this:

At this stage you should also be editing any grammatical errors in people’s responses and gradually adding each response into your draft post in WordPress.

Make sure you include a photo of each expert and a dofollow link to their site!

To make Google realize that your resource is the solution to a problem, make sure it knows by telling it!!!

I’m pretty sure Google picks up on this and gives you extra onsite SEO brownie points. Here’s an example of how I did this in my “How to Promote Your Blog” post:

6. Put your top 5 or 10 list near the top of the post

Putting your top 5 or 10 list in before introducing the experts will:

a) Lower bounce rate and entice sharing earlier
b) Show Google that you have indeed answered the question by collecting votes to create the ultimate answer

7. Include jump links to each of the experts

Because expert roundups are usually large pieces of content, help visitors and Google’s spiders navigate easily with jump links (in alphabetical order) to each expert’s answer:

Also, make sure you include a jump link back to the top of the page after each expert’s answer!

8. Add an H2 header after the intro and before the first expert’s answer

Make sure your target keyword is at the front, for example:

9. Don’t forget to optimise your conclusion

So many people make the mistake of thinking they don’t need a conclusion to their expert roundup.

This is a classic error.

Use your conclusion to thank the experts, drop the target keyword and some variations of it again and round off the post by including the target keyword in the VERY LAST SENTENCE, e.g.

Now that your post is SEO optimised to the max and ready to go it’s time to publish and promote!

The small push to going VIRAL!

Pat yourself on the back. If you’ve followed all the above steps to the letter you should now have an incredibly share worthy piece of content and a huge list of experts to help share it.

All you’ve got to do now is give it the push it needs to get shared like crazy and go viral.

The first way to do this is with tactical email outreach.

Leverage your inside man

Earlier in this guide I mentioned the importance of having experts involved who are avid community site users.

That’s because you’ll need an inside man to help you tap into sites like Reddit or inbound.org.

Sites like Reddit and inbound.org are watering holes for attracting herds of targeted traffic. Just look at how many referrals a sub-Reddit sent my new niche site from just one cheeky link:

These results were achieved from a few simple emails.

All you need to do is ask one or more experts to submit a link to your article on the relevant community site and then ask the other experts to upvote it. Simple.

Huge surges in upvotes are the key to opening the floodgates to an onslaught of traffic and double your roundup’s viral impact.

Sure, shares on social networks like Twitter, Facebook, G+, etc are a massive part of going viral, and the experts WILL naturally share the post on their networks after you tell them about it, but when you’re comparing the power of a share, nothing comes close to heavily upvoted link on a relevant community site.

Here’s how you’re going to tap into community sites

Before you publish your roundup email one or two experts (who regularly submit content on a relevant community site, e.g. Reddit) before everyone else with this template:

Hey [First Name],

Exciting times! I’m just about to publish the expert roundup.

Btw, I noticed you’re pretty active on Reddit.

Do you think after I publish the article you’d be able to help submit a link to it on [sub-Reddit Name]?

Let me know if that’d be cool and I’ll send you the link along with a title you can use for the post!

Cheers,

[User First Name]

As soon as one expert agrees, publish the post, send them the link along with a title and ask them to confirm when it’s done.

This email will do the trick:

Hey [First Name],

Awesome! Thanks for helping out mate

Ok, so the post just went live, here’s the link: http://www.clambr.com/how-to-survive-a-zombie-attack/

If you could use this title for the link that’d be awesome: 55 survival experts discuss how they’d get ready for a zombie attack in one hour

Please do send me the Reddit discussion link when it’s up. Then I can email everyone else to let them know and ask them to upvote!

Thanks again mate!

Cheers,

[User First Name]

Once they reply with the link, send this email (with the Reddit link) to all the other experts:

Hey [First Name],

Exciting news…the expert roundup is live!

You can check it out here: How to Survive a Zombie Attack: 50 Survival Experts Share 3 Top Tips

Also [Expert Name] just shared it on Reddit, so if you could help upvote it on Reddit that’d be amazing: [INSERT LINK TO ARTICLE DISCUSSION ON REDDIT]

Hope you enjoy it and thank you so much for getting involved [First Name]!

Do let me know what you think or if there’s anything you’d like changing

Cheers,

[User First Name]

BOOM!!! Now you’ll not only get tons of shares when the experts share the post on their networks, but you’ll also open the floodgates to waves of targeted traffic when they help upvote the post on a community site.

In effect, you kill two birds with one stone and double the chances of your post going viral. Pretty sick right?

Dirty Trick: If you plan to submit the link to a sub-Reddit and want to guarantee your post gets upvoted like crazy, this cheeky gig will get you 40 upvotes for just $5!

You know what?

I could end this tutorial here.

Seriously, the above information is all you need to make a viral expert roundup happen.

You now know how to create share-worthy content, SEO the sh*t out of it and package it up to get shared like crazy by the experts.

I thought it might make a nice addition to your [WEEKLY ROUNDUP NAME].

Either way, keep up the great work [First Name] and thank you for your consideration

Many thanks,

[User First Name]

Bonus Tip: I’ve often found Tweeting rather than emailing works even better at getting your content both seen and included in weekly link roundups. So if you REALLY want to be proactive at getting in a link roundup Tweet at the curator, e.g.

Bulk email template for anyone you think might be interested in your roundup

This is the exact template I use to blast my roundups out to any site I think might want to check them out.

The number one purpose of this is NOT to get a link, but to simply expose your content to people.

They may or may not decide to link to you later:

Subject: [First Name], I had to share this with you

Hey [First Name],

I’ve been loving your Tweets about [YOUR BROAD NICHE]!

The reason I’m emailing you today is because I wanted to give you a heads up about a group interview I just did that’s all about [TOPIC].

I don’t usually reach out but I thought you might especially like it!

It’s called: “[EXPERT ROUNDUP TITLE]”

You can check it out here:

Let me know what you think and see you around on Twitter!

Cheers,

[User First Name]

After the dust settles it’s time for a broken link building binge!

Broken link building is the best damn method for getting crazy awesome links to your roundup.

That’s because expert roundups are so easy to pitch since they usually are the best resource under the sun.

I recently did an expert roundup on my new niche site and after fixing just 4 broken links it was enough to push my roundup into the top 5 results on Google for a keyword with 8,100 average searches per month!

I cannot stress the power of broken link building enough.

Here are a couple of email templates that work wonders.

Subject: Broken link on [Website Name]

Hey [First Name],

Are you still updating [Website Name]? I found a broken link I’d like to point out.

[User First Name]

Broken link followup email

After the blogger replies asking you where the broken link is, send this:

Hey [First Name],

Happy to help! I found it on your post about [Post Topic] here: [Insert URL].

The broken link is the one to [Insert Broken Link Anchor Text]: [Insert Broken Link URL]

Here’s a screenshot of its position on the page:

[INSERT SCREENSHOT OF BROKEN LINK LOCATION]

I hope that helps!

By the way, since your post is all about [Insert Topic], I’d love it if you’d kindly consider adding another great resource to the post: [Post URL (raw URL, not anchor text)]

[EXPLAIN WHY YOUR RESOURCE IS AWESOME IN 3 SHORT SENTENCES OR LESS]

P.S. The article got a mention on [Insert Cool Site or Blogger Who Mentioned it (for social proof)] here: [URL Where Post Was Mentioned]

Either way, I hope this email was helpful and thanks for your consideration [First Name]!

All the best,

[User First Name]

And that’s a wrap!

Now it’s your turn.

Go out and put the Secret Blueprint to the test.

I guarantee that if you follow all the steps above you will succeed!

If you have any questions or want me to add anything to this guide feel free to hit me up: richard [at] clambr.com

I can’t wait to hear how you get on with your very own expert roundup!

Thank you so much for your support and if you haven’t done already, follow me on Twitter @clambr (it’s pretty much the only social network I use)!